Trader Joe's Has Discontinued a Beloved Holiday Treat This Year

Trader Joe's has been ringing in the holiday season with a plethora of festive goodies, from Peppermint Cream Liqueur to the brand-new Italian Tiramisu. However, there's one beloved holiday item that has been noticeably absent from this year's selection—and customers are devastated over the loss.

Soon after Trader Joe's holiday items started hitting shelves last month, customers began keeping a sharp eye out for the return of the popular Minty Mallows. These festive treats—which featured peppermint marshmallows enrobed in dark chocolate—have been a recurring seasonal item at Trader Joe's for years and garnered plenty of loyal fans during that time. One customer even described them as "criminally underrated" on Reddit a few years ago.

But customers were shocked and disappointed to learn that the Minty Mallows aren't featured in this year's lineup of holiday goodies. Over the past few weeks, several shoppers have received direct confirmation from Trader Joe's employees that the Minty Mallows are not coming back at all this year.

"I was at Trader Joe's today looking for Minty Mallows and an employee went to check for order status. He informed me that Trader Joe's has discontinued Minty Mallows. They can no longer order them," one shopper shared on Reddit earlier this month.

"None here in the San Antonio downtown location. Asked an employee, they looked them up on the [computer] and said they had been discontinued," another wrote.

Shoppers called the news "devastating" and said they were "brokenhearted" over the loss.

In a statement to Eat This, Not That!, a Trader Joe's representative also confirmed that the product was retired in 2023.

"The Minty Mallows were not offered this year in any stores," the statement read.

The statement—and the retailer's website—notes that Trader Joe's goal is to only offer the best quality products at the best prices, so the company has to manage their limited store space very carefully. This means that products that don't sell well enough may be eliminated to make room for other products.

An increase in production costs is another reason that Trader Joe's may discontinue certain items, the statement said. Higher production costs may lead to higher prices for certain products, so the retailer may retire items that no longer make sense in terms of value for the customer.

Luckily for shoppers who can't get through the holiday season without their Minty Mallow fix, one customer believes they've discovered a replacement for the treats at Aldi. A shopper posted on Reddit earlier this month that Aldi's Dark Chocolate Peppermint Marshmallows are a "dupe" for Trader Joe's Minty Mallows.

The two certainly don't look exactly the same. The Aldi marshmallows are dyed green and shaped like Christmas trees, while the Trader Joe's version comes in square shapes without the green dye. But the Redditor swears that Aldi's version has "the exact same taste and texture as the Minty Mallows."